


Three Encounters with Implausible Animals

by Sunfreckle



Category: TAZ graduation - Fandom, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Campaign: Graduation (The Adventure Zone), Cute, Gen, Triple Drabble, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunfreckle/pseuds/Sunfreckle
Summary: I am already deeply in love with Graduation, but I still don’t have anywhere near enough information about the main characters to write fic, so here are three drabbles centred around three animals.
Relationships: Breeze Through the Willow & Master Firbolg, Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt & Snippers
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	1. The Firbolg and the Pegasus

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just very very fond of all the animal companions in this arc, that is all

The barn is dry and warm, but the dirt floors are hard and the wooden walls have no life to them. Not a place where a pegasus ought to be.

Outside the barn, leaning against the sunny south wall, the large, hulking figure of the Firbolg sits comfortably on the ground. Here there is grass instead of dirt, and the unknown forest to look out on in the distance. It is better than inside.

In front of him a small, winged foal rolls around a sunny patch of soft grass. She writhes from side to side before getting back up on her hooves, shaking her feathery wings, and trotting back to the Firbolg.

“Good,” he nods. “Feels…better. Yes?”

“It does,” a small equine voice replies, intelligible only to a very few, but easily understood by her companion.

“Good…”

The young pegasus sets herself down beside him, folding her thin legs underneath herself in a knobbly display of knees. She nudges her nose against one of his knees and the Firbolg gently lifts a large hand, scratching her softly behind her pale ears. The pegasus’ eyes close for a second, before blinking open again to look up at him.

“Can you stay for a while?”

The Firbolg nods, moss-like matted hair tumbling forward down his face. “…yes.”

The pegasus scoots a little closer, breathing out happily through her nose. “Did you learn the thing?”

His eyes dart down from the tops of the trees in the distance. “What thing is this?”

“The thing you had to go learn inside.” She tilts her head to peek past the barn, towards where the school buildings cluster close together. “You said so when you said goodbye last time.”

“I…” The Firbolg pauses with a frown on his broad face. “I…have not learned this thing. This Accounting.”

The pegasus blinks at him. “No?”

He shakes his head, ears flopping down. “No. You see—” There is a rustling of leaves and fabric and a moment later the Firbolg reaches out his hand towards the pegasus with a small mound of berries in his palm. “Do you want this?”

Her ears perk up. “Yes please!”

The Firbolg smiles slightly while the pegasus nibbles on the berries. “This is good. I have berries. You want berries. I give the berries. This is good. Yes?”

The Firbolg nods. “But it is Bad Accounting,” he says solemnly.

“Why?” the pegasus asks, licking up the last berry juice.

“I do not know.” His sigh sounds like the wind in the woods.

For a moment the small pegasus looks thoughtful and then she nudges her nose encouragingly against his wrist. “I did not know how to run with my wings spread, but I did learn! Want to see?”

A Firbolg smiling wide is a marvellous thing. “This is very great. I will watch this.”

Green grass and morning sunshine are very good for showing off the shine on a pegasus’ wings and in this little corner of the campus, things are wonderfully uncomplicated for a while.


	2. The Water Genasi and the Cat

The night is still and velvet. As velvet as the black paws padding soundlessly down the hall. Down the hall, round the corner, and through the wall.

Three students are asleep in their annex dorm room. They are new students, the cat can tell, the room does not yet smell fully like them. Being difficult to perceive has made it very perceptible.

A few days ago this room was still empty. It is better now it is filled. That is how it should be.

The cat flicks its tail, willing it into solidity as it curls through the air, and jumps in an elegant arch from the closed door to the middle of the room. The beds are no longer the way the cat left them. In the corner where the first used to stand, now lies a large figure, sleeping on the stone floor. The cat takes an experimental step in his direction, already blurring at the edges. This…this is a firbolg. Large and solid, earthy. He smells like earth and leaves and dreams.

Two cat eyes blink out and into existence. They do not smell like restful dreams. The large figure is fitful. But solid, so solid.

A faint sound stirs in the silence and the cat looks up. There is the missing bed. It is piled atop another one. With a single leap the cat is above the door, perching beside the dormant gargoyle in its plinth. The longer it sits there the more it takes a similar shape, peering down at the resting half-elf on the stack of beds.

Resting, not sleeping, his brown eyes are open, staring mindlessly. That is not at all how things are supposed to be. There is one normal bed, however, and a third student sleeping there.

Lightly, with paws that flicker into nothing for the softest of landings, the cat jumps down. It does not know the smell of water genasi well. But it is a good smell. Like water that does not get one’s paws wet.

The feline eyes peer through the dark. Even in the dull grey light of the barely illuminated light the student’s skin shows its blue green tint. Scales always gleam to a cat’s eye, regardless of any light for them to catch. How interesting.

The cat glances around, a curious sound curling in its fading body. From the firbolg to the elevated half-elf, to the water genasi.

How _interesting_.

It is weightless as it jumps up onto the bed and barely displaces the sheets as it curls up on the genasi’s chest.

But it is no longer soundless. It purrs.


	3. The Half-Elf and the Crab

Fitzroy has never really had to pretend to spend an excessive amount of time on his evening routine, but this time he does. Only when he’s absolutely sure that both Argo and the Firbolg are asleep does he return to their dorm. The shimmering crab is still with him. He has not been able to dismiss it, no matter how hard he tried.

“Alright.” Fitzroy makes his way to his makeshift bunk bed. “So, you’re not going away, which is- Well, we’ll figure it out in the morning.”

He sets the crab down on the lower bunk of the bed. It looks very tiny in the middle of the mattress. The two little stalky eyes fix on him silently.

Fitzroy shakes his head. “No, you have to sleep here. I cannot look at you while I’m resting- I don’t- I don’t mean I cannot look at you, I just can’t look at you, you know?”

The crab stares at him, glowing softly in the dark.

“Of course you don’t, you’re a crab. Oh this is going very well.” Fitzroy puts his hands on the edge of the top bed, ready to haul himself up. “Look Snip— Snipper? Snip…ers? We’ll workshop the name thing in the morning. But right now you need to stay here, so I can meditate without seeing the manifestation of everything that’s wrong with me shaking claw maracas at me, or whatever messed up drivel my brain is going to make of you.”

He lifts one foot off the floor, hesitates, and comes back down.

“Have you had enough pretzels?”

The tentatively named Snippers gives a soft, content gurgle.

“Okay then.” Fitzroy awkwardly reaches out a hand and gives the gleaming shell a soft pat. “…goodnight.”

The top bunk creaks for a moment under his shifting weight, but soon enough all is quiet. Or as quiet as the annex of the Wiggenstaff School for Heroism and Villainy ever gets. In this room, however, the deep, nearly rumbling breathing of the Firbolg is the loudest sound and the soft, gentle glow of the crab’s shell the brightest light.

Slowly, the darkness around his glow seems to grow deeper, then slightly fuzzy, and then decidedly furry.

Two feline eyes blink into existence and a rather ambiguously tangible cat lands softly on the bed. Its paws do not even dent the mattress, but the crab looks up at it all the same.

A soft purr joins a greeting gurgle and while the three new students sleep, a cat that is almost there curls up around a crab that has only just learned to exist.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! ^^
> 
> (Come find me @voidfishling on tumblr!)


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